ISIS publishes step-by-step booklet with details of safe homes and routes for anybody who wish to join them in Iraq and Syria

 

Islamic State has published a detailed travel guide for would-be recruits with information on how to get to Syria and what they should pack.

 

The 50-page manual called Hijrah, meaning 'holy emigration', includes details of safe houses and routes for Western wannabe jihadists and has been compared to a gap year travel guide.

 

Aimed specifically at young people, its full title is 'Hijrah to the Islamic State: What to pack up, who to contact and where to go. Stories and more!'

 

Published in English, it boasts that ISIS members 'live in Turkey in some peace because Turkey fears revenge attacks', enabling them to help ISIS recruits slip over the border into neighbouring Syria without being caught. 

But the text does make clear Turkish intelligence agencies should not be considered 'friends of Islamic State' and Ankara has only been turning a blind eye to some ISIS activities because of security concerns.

 

In a development which will worry security services there are references to a CIA manual advising operatives on how to get through airports without 'blowing their cover' which was published by Julian Assange's WikiLeaks.

 

Solar chargers, knee and elbow protection, long-johns, binoculars, climbing gear and even a spoon-fork, or 'spork', are all listed as essential bits of kit for the journey.

 

Once in Turkey recruits can have forged identity documents made to order, the manual claims, thanks to Islamic State sympathisers schooled in helping jihadists slip into the fledgling caliphate over the 559-mile border with Syria.

 

A section entirely for 'sisters' tells them to contact the Islamic State Office for Borders in a clear indication the terrorist group is attempting to bolster its legitimacy by acquiring the bureaucratic trappings of a state.